The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-05-30
THE GAS CRAZE IN OHIO.
Senator Sherman's Investment-The Findlay
Boom-The Great Karg Well.

THE GAS CRAZE IN OHIO.
Senator Sherman's Investment-The Findlay
| Boom-The Great Karg Well.
Fndlay Letter in New York Tribune.
| The existence of natural gas at Findlay, which
is the center of the gas region of Ohio, has been
| known for many years. but it not thought
that the surface indications that were noted
| pointed to anything more than little pockets of
| swamp gas The whole region of northwestern
Ohio is low and used to be called the great black
| swamp. The first big gas we'll discovered at
| Findlay was the karg we'll, struck in January.
| 1856. So far as is known there is no larger gas
| pours forth between thirteen and fifteen million
cubic feet of gas. The initial pressure of this
we'll is 400 pounds to the square inch. and it
gains its pressure in one minute and a half after
being shut off. For long time there bar
barous waste of gas at Findlay. For months the
karg we'll blew its mighty volumes of natural
gas into the air with harsh painting roar like
that of a hundred hieh-pressure steam locomo-
tives. Occasionally, when a brilliant illumina-
ton was desired, some would fire rocket
into the escaping gas and then the column would
burst into great balloon of fame which shot up
into the air and lighted the country for miles in
all directions. When the workmen were trying
to confine this well to prevent the wasteful es-
cape piece OF iron weighing three tons was
hurled by the powerful current 200 feet into the
air.
There are in the vicinity of Findlav about for
ty wells, one half of them in the CITY itself, and
the number would be almost Indefinitely multi
piled il there was use or demand for gas.
f.UU
600 cubic feet in twenty-four hours, equal in its
heating properties to more than 200 bushels of
the best coal. The heating power of Findlay gas
has been carefully estimated by well-eGuippe
scientists and it is declared to be from IL to Is
per cent richer in heat producing properties
than the natural gas in in Pittsburg. The
available heating power in gas that be util-
lied exceeds that of coal by % per cent. Find
lay is probably the only town in the world that
is built over great reservoir of gas. Anywhere
in the eastern part of the town the drlers can
order
large and profitable flow of gas from a well the
Trenton limestone from which these fluids come
has to have some popularity of formation
structure so that reservoir or storehouse can
be afforded for the gas to accumulate in. AT
Findlay this structural popularity is marked,
and the fold or arch of Trenton rock has its
western edge almost identical with the north
and-south line made by the main street of the
town, SO that a we'll drilled anywhere in the
belt east of the main street of Findlay will pro-
duce dry gas. If the drillers the street and
sink well it will produce OIL with little or no
gas
The Findlay gas belt of northwestern Ohio
is about forty miles long and from five to
miles in width. When gas first found at
Findlay in large quantities. the town
small, ana the people so quiet and easy going,
that they made little of it. Finally the
news of the enormous flow made its own way
through the State. and less than year ago some
glass houses located in Findlay, and from
that time on the old order of things began to
change. Last February the Hon. William
Vance. grandson of Governor Vance. purchased
for Senator Sherman a tract of land south of
Finelay containing 100 acres, for which $4,000
was paid This investment attracted the atten-
ton of real-estate men, investors and specu-
lators, and in few weeks sedate little Finday
was transformed. Hotels and boarding ouses
were crowded. The streets filed with an
excited throng, and the trains that halted at
the various railway stations brought heavily
loaded passenger There wild de-
mand and strife for farms in the gas belt and
for city property and lots. In ten days after the
excitement began the population had almost
doubled, and every man, woman and child was
dealing in corner lots or other real estate The
barber who shaved me and the boy who BACKED
my boots offered me what they were pleased to
call great bargains in lots.
There are here the dash and hustle of the
booming Western Southern towns, the
eager pursuit of wealth, the excitement and
struggle for business advantages; but it is good
tempered and hammered movement. The rowdy
miner, with his jack boots and pistol, is absent;
in his stead thoughtful, but excited, men of
affairs who have accumulated money and
seeking investment. There probably was never
moro orderly, respectable excitement than the
one in northwestern Ohio It has all the flavor,
fascination and sparkle of legitimate barter,
without the dissipation and brawling thasmieht
be expected with such feyered struggle for
money. The capacity of the town is overtaxed
Every night hundreds of spectators take even
ing trains to neigh boring towns where they can
secure hotel Accommodations, and then return
in the morning to Findlay. The price of Sena-
tor Sherman's land, which take sam pie of
the movement in real estate values. rose in thr-
ty days from $50. 600 to $780, 900, in sixty days to
$50, 900; and just seventy five days after he pur-
chased it, Mr.. Vance showed me a letter from
some we'll known capitalist making cash offer
of ST. so 900 for the land. The real estate sales
here have reached more than S., 600, 900 q week
One year ago Findlay almost
known town. It's population is IA, 900;
more than three times what it when
Senator Sherman became investor. The
boom is founded upon cheap fuel and the indus
trial development that is expected to follow its
use Fuel at Findlay costs almost nothing The
city owns a number of fine gas wells and the
gas mains by which the houses are supplied.
The cost to consumers for gas is 10 cents a
month for each stove crate. Manufacturing
establishments of consequence have wells given
to them so that their fuel costs nothing.
Findlay is envelopedi in atmosphere of gas,
and it is properly called the gas center of the
United States. When one approaches the place
at night leaping flames from the great plumes
of light that rise and fare from hundred huge
pipes brighten the heavens with rudy glow
which suggests the northern lights. The gas
has strong sulphuric odor. 1t thus be cas-
lily detected, and there is little danger of it's
Gaping in a house unknown to the occupants. In
this respect the Ohio natural gas has decided
advantage over that found elsewhere. So far as
present indications go, the supply is without
limit A few of the wells have been in blast for
four years, and neither the pressure the
volume has diminished IN the least. 1t is as
serted that the pressure in the great Karg well
has increased within the last six Nc onths; but,
after ali, the perpetuity of the great under
ground reservoirs of natural gas is a matter of
conjecture The theories bearing this branch
of the subiec. almost as numerous the
people who visit this modern wonderland.
A Cheerful Item.